It is part of the Tim Tebow canon that cynicism will shadow him and stalk him, wherever he goes, whatever he says, whatever the year, whatever the subject, whatever the sport.

That says more about a cynical time and a skeptical society than it does about Tebow. In a world of hashtags, the wide-eyed, gosh-darn-golly-gee-willikers outlier tends to be overwhelmed by the rolled-eyed, get-the-*#@$-out-of-here multitude.

“I’m just so happy I get to pursue my passion,” Tebow said Thursday, the day he agreed to play for the Mets, the day the Mets committed to training and instructing the one-time Heisman Trophy winner.

The day the internet nearly broke.

“In America,” he said, “we get to do what we love and pursue it.”

We don’t live in a world that easily welcomes Chip Hilton anymore, or Frank Merriwell, or Roy Hobbs. Heck, even Hobbs had to all but threaten to quit before Pop Fisher agreed to give him a look after 16 years away from the game. And Bump Bailey had to die first before he got a real shot.

“This is a chance,” he said Thursday, “for us to associate with excellence.”

But this is Tebow, so the snickers began before he even completed his sentence, social media crackling with complaint: this is just a way to sell tickets in Port St. Lucie/Brooklyn/Binghamton. This is an affront to kids who don’t take 11 years off from baseball to pursue other dreams in other sports. He’s signed to work SEC telecasts this fall, and will leave camp to honor those commitments, and so for some that’s like a soldier going AWOL, only with advanced knowledge.

“From a perception standpoint, will people talk about it? Yeah. Probably,” Alderson said. “But practically speaking, this is not going to be a significant impediment.”

Look, here’s the thing: baseball is not only the ultimate democracy, it is also the ultimate meritocracy. Only the strong survive. Only those with talent, and the ability to harness it, ever take a major league at-bat. Only one out of every six players taken in the major league draft ever plays an inning in the bigs, and the odds of an undrafted outlier are far steeper than that.

If Tebow can hit, he will play.

If he plays well, he’ll keep playing.

And if he doesn’t, he’ll be cut, and publicly branded a failure. And not for the first time. Or the third.

“We are mindful of the novel nature of this situation,” Alderson said.

You know what was also a novel situation once? Bo Jackson. Deion Sanders was a novel situation, too. Baseball people still coo with wonder at some of the things Jackson was able to do on a baseball field until he ruined his hip on a football field. And while Sanders’ career as an outfielder is overshadowed by what he did as a cornerback, he did hit .533 with a 1.255 OPS in the ’92 World Series.

That doesn’t mean Tebow will make it, or even that he’ll ever get a major league at-bat. But is there really any harm in giving him an opportunity? Of course not. It’s a no-lose prospect for the Mets. And for Tebow, who already has been released by three different NFL teams and given away by a fourth, it’s even less of a risk.